Mr Obama will fly into Britain on Friday for a meeting at his London hotel with Mr Blair to discuss the Middle East and climate change.

He will meet Mr Brown the following day at Downing Street but has declined to take part in a televised press conference with the Prime Minister.

He will appear instead on the steps of Downing Street with Mr Brown to answer a few questions. He will then meet David Cameron the Tory leader.

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The Democratic presidential candidate has given priority to Mr Blair, who he is expected to have breakfast or dinner with, because he is still enormously popular in the United States. Mr Brown, by contrast, is barely known across the Atlantic.

The six-nation tour by Mr Obama has enjoyed saturation coverage in the American media.

Mr Obama’s advisers calculated that photographs and television footage breaking bread with Mr Blair would play much better back home than with the Prime Minister.

A d v e r t i s e m e n t

Officially Downing Street maintains that they are relaxed about the Democratic senator’s schedule. But privately they are dismayed that Mr Blair has upstaged his successor.